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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering
Heat Pipes With Arbitrary Boundary Conditions, Katrina Sweetland
Heat Pipes With Arbitrary Boundary Conditions, Katrina Sweetland
Doctoral Dissertations
Heat pipes passively transfer heat in numerous applications. Traditionally one side of the heat pipe is coupled to a heat source (evaporator) while the opposite side is coupled to a heat sink (condenser). This configuration has working fluid stagnation points at each end of the heat pipe. Other configurations may also prove useful, such as heat pipes with multiple evaporators or multiple condensers. In such heat pipes, additional working fluid stagnation points form at locations dependent on the configuration of the thermal boundary conditions. These stagnation points divide the heat pipe into multiple cells that each have an evaporator and …
Lightweight, High-Temperature Radiator For In-Space Nuclear-Electric Power And Propulsion, Briana N. Tomboulian
Lightweight, High-Temperature Radiator For In-Space Nuclear-Electric Power And Propulsion, Briana N. Tomboulian
Doctoral Dissertations
The desire to explore deep space destinations with high-power and high-speed spacecraft inspired this work. Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP), shown to provide orders of magnitude higher specific impulse and propulsion efficiency over traditional chemical rockets, has been identified as an enabling technology for this goal. One of large obstacle to launching an NEP vehicle is total mass. Increasing the specific power (kW/kg) of the heat radiator component is necessary to meet NASA’s mass targets. This work evaluated a novel lightweight, high-temperature carbon fiber radiator designed to meet the mass requirements of future NEP missions. The research is grouped into three …